I shook my head. “Women are so much more enlightened.”
She smiled smugly.
“So why did I note a hint of you being annoyed that I hired Jeannette Schmidt to represent me?”
“You would bring that up.” She shook her head.
“There’s something appealing about you being jealous.” I dragged my garlic bread through my sauce.
“I’m not jealous. Not now, anyway.”
Ouch.
“In high school, though, I wanted to scratch her eyes out. Especially when it got out that you were fucking her.”
I shrugged. “I had to learn somewhere. I was a sophomore and she was a senior.”
“Are all men horndogs or is that just you and Ryder?” she asked with a pointed look at me, like it was a serious question.
“All men like sex, although I think that women like it just fine too.” I leaned forward. “I do believe you’re the one who seduced me, Sinclair.”
“You really like to remind me of that, don’t you?”
I grinned. “I do. It’s a favorite memory of mine.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not so easy this time, pal…the other night notwithstanding.”
I nodded. “It seems only fair that this time I do the pursuing.”
She stilled for a moment, and then finished twisting her spaghetti on her fork. “We agreed that this was an arrangement.”
“I know.”
She looked up at me, as if she didn’t believe me.
I was going to respect her wishes, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t let her know how things would be if she gave me another chance. “If you were open to rekindling things, I’d do it much better this time. I’d give you romance and whispers of sweet nothings. I’d give you all the things I didn’t last time.” I wanted to tell her I’d open my soul for her this time as I hadn’t done that last time and instead, I’d run off.
I wondered if Alyssa’s father had given her any romance before he’d disappeared from the picture. I was dying to ask for the details, and at the same time, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think about my precious Sinclair going to college and letting another man touch her. I didn’t want to hear how it was that she ended up a single mother. Where was the fucker and why wasn’t he helping her?
“Well, perhaps you can pretend you did all that when the townsfolk start asking about this whirlwind marriage,” she said.
“I think sticking as close to the truth as possible is the best. We were a couple the summer after high school, with big plans that I fucked up by running off. But now I’m back, all grown up and ready to be the man you need. And despite your reservations about me, you just couldn’t help yourself. So once again you threw yourself at me under the old oak tree.”
She laughed. “That was good until that last bit.”
I nodded toward her hand. “You’re not wearing the ring.”
“Wyatt, I don’t feel right wearing it. It’s an heirloom. It feels disrespectful to wear it in a sham marriage.”
The word sham was like a punch in the gut. “It will help sell the story of this marriage.”
“It’s in my purse. I’m terrified of losing it. But I’ll put it on when I go out.”
We finished eating and then she helped clear the table and took over dish duty. I was struck by how normal this felt. We could have had ten years of this if I hadn’t run off.
As she washed, I dried the items that didn’t go in the dishwasher. I dried off the slow cooker that had the sauce in it and reached over Sinclair to put in the cupboard over the sink. I took a moment to inhale her sweet scent. Yes. Honeysuckle or something floral.
She moved back, her backside hitting me in the groin. Of course, my dick went from zero to full-tilt in an instant. Or perhaps he was already semi-hard. So maybe it was thirty to full-tilt. Either way, need and desire rushed like a torrent through my body. That night under the tree came back in a firestorm; her soft body, suckable tits, tight wet pussy. God, I wanted that again.